How to Post on the Slow Travel Forums

If you are new to these forums, read this for a few hints about asking for travel advice.

DO post your travel questions, post answers and join us in a friendly online travel community.
DO NOT spam our forums with your complaints about travel companies. If you are a participating member of our forums and have a problem with a company, post and tell us. But do not join the forums and for your first (and only) post do a rant about a company. It will be removed.
DO NOT post a commercial message either for your own business or a friend's business. It will be removed.
DO NOT post "I want to buy", "I want to sell" or "Join me on my tour/class" topics in the travel forums. These posts will be removed. Only Gold Star Members can do these types of posts in the For Sale/Home Exchange/Items Wanted forum.
DO NOT post messages congratulating members on personal or business achievements (including media mentions) in our travel forums. These will be deleted. Gold Star members can add these well wishes to our Member Tidings and Mentions discussion in the Everything Else forum.
Remember, you said YES to our Forum Rules when you joined the forums.

The Slow Travel Website

These forums are part of the Slow Travel website, which is at a different URL: www.slowtrav.com. On that site we have over 13,000 pages of travel information, vacation rental listings, reviews of vacation rentals, hotels and restaurants, detailed trip reports - all the information you need to learn about this different way of travel.

If you have never stayed in vacation rentals in Europe, here are some links to get you started:

Who Are We??

Read about the people who run Slow Travel here: Slow Travel - About Us

Try Searching for the Information First

Search the forums and the website to see if you can find the answer to your question.

On the forums, click FIND. We have over 200,000 posts on these forums - you may find what you are looking for in a previous post.
On the Slow Travel web site, click SEARCH in the header.

If you find an answer, but want more recent advice, please post!

How Do I Post a Message?

First, join the forums and verify your email address. Click Login/Join in the upper right corner.

To post, find the appropriate forum, go into it, then click NEW - DISCUSSION and enter your post. There is a submit button in the lower right corner of the input box.

If you are having problems or have more questions, read the Forums Help section. If you are still having problems, email the forums administrator - email link is at the bottom of each page.

We specialize in Slow Travel

Remember that we specialize in Slow Travel - staying in vacation rentals for slower trips. We discuss lots of other things, but this is our main focus. If you are planning a "fast travel" trip (2 days here, 3 days there), you might get more answers to your questions on other forums that specialize in this type of travel. See our list of other forums.

But, we would like to convince you to slow down your trip.

What Information to Give When Asking for Trip Advice

If you want to post a question, read this to see what type of information you should include in your post.

Tell us the time of year you will be traveling. This makes a big difference in a trip and may change the advice people give.
Tell us the number of people in your group. This makes a difference for the type of vacation rental or hotel.
If you are seeking hotel or vacation rental advice, tell us your budget and tastes. Do you want a luxury room and don't care what the cost is? Or a budget place?
How long is your trip?
What are your interests? Some people want to explore Roman ruins, some the outdoors, some the art - tell us your interests, what you want from the trip.
Will you have small children with you or someone who cannot walk long distances and climb many stairs?

These Forums are Moderated and have Posting Rules

Written by Amy

To dig out that analogy from a few years back, we expect members of the SlowTrav community to behave as if they are in Pauline's living room. You may know some of the people, and you will be meeting many for the first time. Just as you would in a face-to-face situation, please take care to be courteous and helpful. Feel free to disagree with others or offer a different perspective. Just do so with tact and a respectful manner. We hope you feel able to enter or ignore conversations as you wish; can sometimes take another's perspective in order to perhaps enlarge your own; and not jump to conclusions about the people you have just met. You can review SlowTrav's Rules here.

The reason we ask people to not post about politics or religion is twofold. The complexities of the issues tend to go beyond the scope of a travel discussion venue. We have too often seen the postings take a personal and divisive bent very quickly, and often become unpleasant. The respectful nature of the community becomes frayed, and thoughtful discussion evaporates.

If you read a post you have issues with, there are a number of avenues you can take. You can ignore it. You can use the "alert" flag to notify a Moderator (the little triangle icon above the "reply" button). Depending on the topic under discussion, you can engage in a respectful discussion. We ask that people not enter into flame wars, take a personal stance with another member, or use thinly veiled cruelty. Postings of this sort will be deleted, without notice.

SlowTrav has high expectations for its members. As Moderators, we simply ask that everyone be responsible for their own civil conduct. Be conscious of the power of your words, be thoughtful in your discussion, and be respectful of the feelings of those you reach through SlowTrav.